Black August began in the 1970s to mark the assassination of the imprisoned Black Panther, author, and revolutionary George Jackson during a prison rebellion in California. Each year in August we take time to honor captured freedom fighters of the Black Liberation struggle as we study, train and recommit to the struggle for freedom year-round.
In lieu of our normal Monday night letter-writing, we will be co-hosting a Black August event with Philly Jericho. We will be focusing on sending meaningful letters of solidarity to Sundiata Acoli, who was a prominent member of the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party. We will also send birthday cards to political prisoners with birthdays in September: Leonard Peltier (the 12th) and Maumin Khabir (the 15th).
Never written a letter to a prisoner before? No Problem! Join us at Clark Park (stone platform near 45th and Chester) and we will go over some of the basics and have all the letter-writing supplies and snacks available.
If you are unable to make the event, please send your solidarity to Sundiata at:
ALBANY — Just hours before leaving office, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo granted clemency to five men, including the commutation of the 75-years-to-life sentence of David Gilbert, a former member of the radical Weather Underground who in 1981 took part in the robbery of a Brink’s armored truck in Rockland County that left two Nyack police officers and a security guard dead.
David with his son, Chesa Boudin
Steve Zeidman, a CUNY Law School professor who began representing Gilbert in 2019, said Monday evening that his client is one of the oldest and longest-serving among the state’s roughly 38,000 inmates. He said that Gilbert has expressed deep remorse for his role in the crime, and while behind bars has taken part in efforts such as the creation of an AIDS education program that became a statewide model as the epidemic was raging in the 1980s and ’90s.
Zeidman, who directs the law school’s Criminal Defense Clinic, said that beyond the impact on Gilbert personally, Cuomo’s action sends a message to incarcerated people who fear they have no chance for release. “When a governor issues clemency, it echoes, it reverberates, it spreads hope,” he said.
Gilbert’s son, Chesa Boudin, was elected district attorney for San Francisco in 2019. His mother, Kathy Boudin, was also incarcerated for decades for her part in the heist, and received parole in 2003.
The Times Union’s Paul Grondahl wrote in November about the efforts of Chesa Boudin and Green Island’s Jeff Jones, a family friend and former ’60s radical turned environmental advocate, to press Cuomo to release Gilbert from prison — especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As someone who has known David since 1966, I’m just ecstatic,” Jones said Monday evening. ” … He’s a guy who deserves to be out of prison.”
Gilbert and Kathy Boudin were in a transfer truck waiting for the getaway car carrying the robbers and the $1.6 million they had stolen from the Brink’s truck at the Nanuet Mall. Boudin received a sentence of 25 years to life after hiring a lawyer, pleading guilty and accepting a plea deal; Gilbert defended himself and went to trial.
“My father was not present in the courtroom for much of the trial and nobody advocated for him, which is why it is a bad idea to represent yourself,” Chesa Boudin told Grondahl. “My mother and father did the exact same thing and had identical culpability in the crime. My mother served 22 years in prison and was paroled 17 years ago, while my father is still in prison. It’s an example of criminal justice imbalance.”
Boudin noted that his father is perhaps the only person his age who has served as many years in state prison who was unarmed during the commission of the crime. Another Brink’s robbery co-defendant, Weather Underground member Judith Clark, who drove the getaway car, was granted parole in 2019 after Cuomo commuted her 75-years-to-life sentence in 2016. Prosecutors and law enforcement bitterly opposed her parole and called it an insult to the victims’ family members.
Tarred by scandal, Cuomo is scheduled to relinquish his office at 11:59 p.m. Also Monday, he commuted the sentences of four other individuals who will not have to go before the parole board to earn release. They are:
Greg Mingo, 68, convicted of four counts of second-degree murder as well as burglary and weapons charges, who has served 39 years of a 50-years-to-life sentence;
Robert Ehrenberg, 62, was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder as well as robbery and burglary charges, who served 28 years of a 50-year-to-life sentence;
Ulysses Boyd, 66, convicted of one count of second-degree murder and weapons charges for an incident in which he was not the gunman, who has served 35 years of a 50-years-to-life sentence.
Paul Clark, 59, convicted of three counts of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree attempted murder, who served 40 years of an aggregate 58 years and 4 months-to-life sentence.
As with Gilbert’s case, Cuomo cited the men’s efforts to educate themselves and do good works while incarcerated.
Note:An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect first name for attorney Steve Zeidman.
WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing with NYC Anarchist Black Cross WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, August 24th, 2021 WHERE: Virtual (not in person)
The Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) originally began as a channel for mostly Jewish anarchist emigres from the Russian empire to support revolutionaries locked up for struggling against Tsarism in the early 20th century. Known at first as the Workers Red Cross, then the Anarchist Red Cross, and eventually as the Anarchist Black Cross, the early ABC would raise awareness and funds, keep up correspondences and send money and food packages to their imprisoned comrades. After the Bolsheviks seized power the work remained to support non-Communist Party approved revolutionaries, re-imprisoned by the new bosses for continuing the fight against the old ones, and Alexander Berkman continued the work from exile in Berlin.
As the decades passed the increasing urgency of countering fascism and the great depression shifted priorities, and the ABC fell away as an organization (though many comrades continued the work of supporting political prisoners). It was revived by Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie in the 1960’s, and while originally focusing on veterans of the ongoing struggle against Franco’s regime, it expanded rapidly to other include other struggles and international chapters. Former political prisoner Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin revived it in the belly of the ‘american’ beast, and today we see ABC chapters throughout the world.
Whatever the demands of time and place, the watchword of the ABC has always been solidarity. As Albert Meltzer said: “It is not intended to be a charity. It is to organize solidarity for victims of the class war.“ If by class war we mean the intersecting struggles against all forms of oppression—and we do—then we stand by Albert’s words. Regimes and pandemics come and go, but true solidarity is for ever.
As we have said before, it is matter of anarchist principle for us that we do not only support anarchist political prisoners, but all those engaged in struggles against oppression. But now, as has been the case for over a century, anarchist prisoners around the world are in need of solidarity.
NYC Books through Bars offers this wonderful program where you can buy a bundle of books and they get all the books at the end of the month. They then use these books to fulfill requests made by people in prison and jail. Check it out and order at http://www.freebirdbooks.com/shop.html
Following July’s drive featuring titles from AK Press–550 books collected!–we revisit our friends at Grove Press, who a year ago collaborated on what still stands as our most successful monthly campaign to date. Generating an astounding 1,600 books in just two weeks, it brought special attention to Albert Woodfox’s memoir of incarceration, Solitary, who we had the good fortune of interviewing about his experiences. This time we selected another three titles that also spotlight the diversity of Grove’s catalog, representative of a storied publisher long committed to fighting censorship and social injustice. Alif the Unseen is a debut work of fantasy that pulls upon Arabic folklore to spin a cyperpunk tale worthy of Neil Gaiman. Lakota Woman is a classic of indigenous literature, the story of Mary Brave Bird and her activism within the Native American movements of the 1970s and ’80s. And Wilmington’s Lie is the recent Pulitzer Prize-winner that documents the long forgotten but brazen coup of white North Carolinians against an integrated city in the late 19th century.
“We are glad to announce that we will be releasing a 16 track CD compilation with Mutual Aid Records on September 10th. All proceeds will be going directly to the ABCF warchest for political prisoners. Please feel free to message us about this”.
Eric King is a 35-year-old political prisoner who is being severely singled out by the federal Bureau of Prisons for abusive and illegal treatment. He has been in solitary confinement for 1,000 days+ and all contact with the outside has been cut off or severely restricted. He cannot receive/send mail, make phone calls, or get visits except for very limited contact with his attorney, mother, and wife. Eric NEEDS our help now.
On August 19 & 20th from 9am-5pm Mountain Time, call & email to demand that Eric King (#27090-045) be allowed phone, mail, and visit contact with the outside world, just like all other federal prisoners:
Barb von Blanckensee, Director North Central Region, Bureau of Prisons (BOP): (913) 621-3939 [email protected]
Bullet points when calling/emailing:
It is known that Eric has been consistently targeted with physical and emotional torture because of his political views.
It is absolutely wrong that he cannot receive/send mail, make phone calls, or get visits except for very limited contact with his attorney, mother, and wife. These are basic rights–even in federal prison.
NYC Anarchist Black Cross has released their new Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (Version 14.6). Download it here.
“We’ve finished the latest version of the NYC ABC “Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War” and it’s available for viewing (and download). This update includes updated mini-bios, photos, and address changes for several prisoners. Unfortunately, we are adding a prisoner to the guide this month–Water Protector Jessica Reznicek. We are thankful to remove Kings Bay Plowshares 7 prisoner Clare Grady (halfway house)!”
Join NYC Jericho and the Certain Days collective in writing political prisoners at this free event. We will be giving short presentations and writing political prisoners: Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli,Jessica Reznicek and Xinachtli. Materials will be provided.
LAST THURSDAY AUGUST 12, RUSSELL MAROON SHOATZ’S PETITION TO QUIETLY LIVE OUT HIS DAYS IN HOSPICE CARE WAS DENIED.
Judge Kai Scott of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas denied Russell Maroon Shoatz’s petition for a medical transfer, despite his immobility and terminal cancer diagnosis, because she believes he is a danger to the community and a risk of escape.
Statement from the ‘Free Maroon Now!’ Coalition We are in total disagreement with the obviously politically influenced decision by Judge Scott of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to currently deny our Elder’s petition for transfer to hospice care, due to an unfounded believe that Maroon is still a “threat to escape & a threat to society.”
Too, we are vehemently opposed to the needless days of waiting that the family was forced to endure between the two court hearings and to then have to come to grips with this falsely hopeful “selling of a dream” decision that was both totally unreasonable and emotionally cruel.
The armed domestic war during the late 60s, 70s and early 80s in the United States between the Police & Black Radicals has long since passed with extreme casualties on both sides and the call for peace & reconciliation is the only way for society to justly move forward from those turbulent years of struggle in America.
Russell Maroon Shoatz can no more be considered “a threat to escape & a threat to society” than the elderly bedridden ICU patients on ventilators from COVID that he too, by the grace of God & community support, somehow survived from the medical neglect that so many other prisoners have died from.
We call upon all clergy, community activists, educators, elected officials, and freedom loving people to join in our struggle to support and call on Judge Scott have the courage to reverse her decision at the next appeals hearing and grant Maroon’s petition to hospice care. linktr.ee/FreeMaroonNow
Statement from the Shoatz Family On behalf of the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles and the ancestors of Russell “Harun-Maroon” Shoatz, we would like to first thank all of those who have stood with us over the years in action & prayer to help bring our beloved Elder Patriarchal Father back home to us.
That said, we are saddened but not disheartened about the recent decision by Judge Scott of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to deny our Elder’s petition for transfer to hospice care and pledge to continue our struggle to have Russell Harun-Maroon Shoatz peacefully spend his last days amongst both his loving family and the duly respected members of our community.
We unequivocally disagree with Judge Scott’s opinion that a 78-year-old deeply religious, COVID-surviving, partially blind, wheelchair bound, urinary catheter bag dependent, and waiting to die from stage 4 pancreatic cancer person could in any way possibly “still present a risk of escape and threat to public safety”.
We therefore would respectfully appeal to her stated belief in mercy to ultimately reverse her decision to grant the hospice care petition and insure that Russell Harun-Maroon Shoatz not die in prison.
Statement from Russell Maroon Shoatz’s Legal Team Maroon’s petition for transfer to hospice care was denied by Judge Scott of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas after two hearings. That law that allows people in Maroon’s position to request transfer to hospice care is very limited, and requires people to meet a strict set of criteria to be eligible for transfer to hospice care. Even then, judges have the discretion to deny these petitions if they choose.
In Maroon’s case, Judge Scott acknowledged that he met every eligibility requirement except for one — that we must prove he does not present a risk of “escape” or a threat to public safety. Judge Scott acknowledged many factors weighing in favor of Maroon — his medical and physical condition, letters of support describing how he has mentored countless people over the years, decades without being charged with any crimes or misconducts in the DOC, and the extensive support he would have from the community around him. Judge Scott also expressed that she believes in mercy and that everyone should be able to transition to the next life with their loved ones around them.
Ultimately, however, Judge Scott said that she would not be doing her job as a judge if she granted Maroon that mercy. She decided that, based on his past criminal convictions from the 1970s and 80s, Maroon still presented a risk of escape and threat to public safety. We obviously disagree with this decision, and we’re committed to continuing to work with Maroon to carry out his wishes.
